Flobots

Gotta be my new favorite group...

Check out this video

YouTube Friday

Winner of Cannes "Short Film"

Historia de un Letrero (The Story of a Sign)


Proof that you don't need a long movie to get your point across.

YouTube Friday

Pray for peace in the midst of the coming storms...

Problems with Technology

You might have notice my blog's look has changed again...no thanks to the "so-called" free blogger templates available on the net. Apparently the last template I chose (and one I particularly enjoyed) had a problem with his hosting at photobucket and bandwith issues.

So back to the drawing board for me and back to a "basic" look from blogger.

What am I going to have to learn CSS to do everything myself? :)

A new faith based political party?

Interesting developments afloat in the Democratic National Convention. They opened with PRAYER! In an article over at Yahoo! there are talks about the first sanctioned event being an interfaith prayer service...
At the first official event Sunday of the Democratic National Convention, a choir belted out a gospel song and was followed by a rabbi reciting a Torah reading about forgiveness and the future.

During the week they will have:

• Four faith caucuses!
• Blessings to open and close each night of the convention
• And discussion panels led by faith based leaders

Joel Hunter, an evangelical mega-church pastor, will lead the benediction the night that Obama accepts the nomination.

For a full list of the ongoings at the Democrat National Convention check out ChristianityToday's Blog.

So maybe the Democrats are finally "getting it"?

You can follow faith and the DNC at Christianity Today's Blog.

YouTube Friday

Phil Whickham, Hallelujah

Church Websites

The problem with E-zekiel...

you get what you pay for. Most people who use the web are web savvy and church websites with E-zekiel as the host are an immediate turn off. Cookie cutter stamped out websites with the church's name on the top. I would probably say it is better NOT to have a website than to turn off visitors with a site from E-zekiel.

/end of rant

N.T. Wright on the Bible and Tomorrow's World

What we desperately need, if we are to pursue a biblical, Christian and indeed Anglican mission in the postmodern world, is the Spirit of Truth. There is no time to develop this further, but it is vital to say this one thing. We have got so used to the postmodern sneer that any truth-claim is instantly suspect. And at that point many Christians have lurched back to the apparent safety of a modernist claim: conservative modernists claim that they can simply look up truth in the Bible, without realising what sort of book it is, while radical modernists claim they find truth in today’s science, without realising what sort of a thing that is either. But we cannot go back; we have to go on; and the Spirit of Truth, often invoked in favour of any and every innovation in the church, is actually at work when we live within the great story, the love story, God’s love-story, and become in turn agents, missional agents, of that story in the world. Truth is not something we possess and put in our pockets, because truth is grounded in the goodness of creation, the promise of redemption for that creation, and the vocation of human beings to speak God’s word both of naming the original creation and of working for new creation – the word, in other words, of mission. The Spirit of Truth is given so that, living within the great biblical story, we can engage in those tasks.

Article available here.

Authority

A word from an outsider looking into a parent's business...

The Anglican community wrapped up its once every 10 years meeting "Lambeth" the other day with no new resolution on the issues threatening to split the church. (Mainly the issue of how to interpret scripture is the heart of the matter...not same-sex marriage or same-sex attraction relationship among bishops.)

Now I know this is an outsider opinion, but it might be one that is helpful. The problem with all this is not that the Anglican Communion differs theologically. The problem to put it bluntly is that the "member churches" of the Anglican Communion DON'T SUBMIT TO ANY AUTHORITY. They all do what they want to do. The Episcopal Church does what it wants to do, the Church of England does what it wants to do, the Anglican Church of Africa does what it wants to do. Even some LOCAL PARISHES do what they want to do. Some don't ordain women, some do. Some don't ordain homosexual people, some do. There is no authority. There is no central body. Even the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, does not have any real authority. And from what I can tell part of the Anglican DNA is to be resistant to authority. This part of the DNA now threatens the fragile communion.

So here is a small suggestion from a United Methodist...
Find some sort of central authority. When we are ordained we asked if we will UPHOLD the Discipline. This is a very very serious question. Our Book of Discipline and our General Conference are the ultimate bearers of authority in the United Methodist Church. Here is the point: I can disagree at times with the Book of Discipline, but I will always uphold it. I can advocate for changing parts of the Book of Discipline and vote towards this, but I will always uphold it. I can disagree with my fellow clergy on theological points, but we always realize that the ultimate authority in our denomination is not us. The Book of Discipline as set and reset by the General Conference good or bad has authority over those who call themselves Methodist. It is the reason the Methodist denomination contains a wide variety of voices and manages to hold all those voices together.

So Anglican Communion, what is your authority? What binds you together? What allows for differing voices but also has final say? Maybe this new Anglican Covenant will do those things, but it will only do those things if it brings everyone on board.

My fear is there isn't one.

Owning Church, Prayer, and Faith

I am a big believer in open source. I believe the future is open source. I use open source. I support open source. The Episcopal Church even with all its flaws has an open source prayer book (The Book of Common Prayer) well before the phrase "open source" came into existence. I have had countless arguments about the need for our own Methodist liturgy to be made open source. After all liturgy means "work of the people" not "work of this one publishing house and now you must bow before them." But it something that happens gradually over time and I will continue pushing.

Time Magazine, however, published a great article about "Who Owns That Prayer?" It specifically talks about the Serenity prayer attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr, but it also adds commentary at the bottom of the article about how things have changed in the modern world.

Stephen Prothero, the head of the religion department at Boston University, says that the controversies would not have made the front page (or the front papyrus) in the past. One reason for this is that the concept of ownership of intellectual property is only a few hundred years old. The other is that the real author of pious art - whether literary or artistic - used to be considered to be God, who may require fear, awe or compassion, but not royalties.

Prothero brings up what is perhaps the foremost example of this kind of tolerance. Most modern critics regard the Gospels of the new Testament as being mutually dependent. "Did Luke rip off Mark?" he asks. "Probably." That is to say, Luke probably incorporated Mark's gospel into his own. Did it matter? Certainly not to the early Christians, who put four different and arguably contradictory accounts in their Bible. "Piety," notes Prothero, "trumped authorship." Besides, the real author reigned in heaven.

So when will we return to a time when piety once again trumps authorship? After all isn't everything we have a gift?

Long Time, No Post

Sorry I haven't blogged in awhile. Still transitioning through a move. I am now located at Asbury UMC in Lafayette, LA. This move more than any other I have made has been a difficult one. Just getting settled in to our parsonage is still taking time, and I have been a lot busier at work.

Once we get fully settled I hope to be able to blog more about life, faith, and everything else.

YouTube Friday